Why DIY? at Left Forum

On May 31st, we convened a panel at Left Forum to discuss why use DIY models and how. With Glen Ganaway and Lisa Markuson.

Participatory Budgeting NYC

I was honored to participate for the second time as an artist resource for three districts as part of PBNYC‘s participatory budgeting initiative to bring community funding and decision making back to the neighborhood.

Big thanks to #ArtandDemocracy for leading a wonderful poster making workshop! #PBinD23! #participatorybudgeting #Queens #peoplepower #engaged #dedication

A photo posted by Participatory Budgeting NYC (@pbnewyorkcity) on Feb 2, 2014 at 7:56pm PST

Sunday is Game Day!

Cooperative Economic Exchange: Game Day

On Sunday, April 28th join The Brooklyn Torch and TimeBanksNYC at NURTUREart Gallery for an afternoon of play exploring cooperative exchange. The Brooklyn Torch Project invites David Morgan, a co-creator of new board game ‘Co-opoly’ made by Toolbox for Education and Social Action (TESA) to demonstrate and support gameplay.

In Co-opoly: The Game of Cooperatives, players collaborate to found and run a democratic business. This is an exciting game of skill and solidarity, where everyone wins – or everybody loses.

Jessie Reilly of TimeBanksNYC will also facilitate a variety collaborative games, including a new twist on surrealist drawing and storytelling exercises which explore themes raised by participant’s relationships to time and money. As part of the Brooklyn Torch Economic Kindling Package, everyone who joins and completes a game with gallery visitors and neighbors, will be rewarded for their play-training session in Brooklyn Torches, North Brooklyn’s local currency. Brooklyn Torches are good for a wide range of local services and goods on our registry and in our Trade Stores.

Cashing Out

Apr 19 – May 16, 2013
Opening Reception: Fri. April 19, 7-9PM
NURTUREart Gallery, 56 Bogart Street, Brooklyn NY

The Brooklyn Torch Project is very excited to be in this month’s NURTUREart exhibition Cashing Out, curated by Petrushka Bazin Larsen – the first exhibition to use NURTUREart’s new Online Registry as a curatorial resource. Cashing Out features artists’ musings on our current financial system and their creative proposals for establishing alternative economies. The exhibition is informed by economic inequities, excessive production of goods, unfair wages, discord between nations and an overall desire to become a more sustainable society where we rely on each other and our natural abilities to make ends meet. Looking to the artist as an author of innovation and creative problem solving, Cashing Out also considers how our current economy can be destabilized using community networks, cooperative economics, bartering, and other exchanges.

By bringing together video, sculpture, participatory prompts and ephemera by Shinsuke Aso, Nicky Enright, Heather Hart, Mary Jeys, Michelle Kaufman, Carolyn Lambert, and Scott Massey, the gallery becomes a space for conversation about these circumstances and hopefully a catalytic platform for new solutions.

Holding The Brooklyn Torch Trade Store

Every first Saturday of every month in 2013, I plan to hold a Brooklyn Torch Trade Store at my studio in Greenpoint. If you’re around, you should come:
50 Dobbin Street (between Berry and Norman)
Brooklyn, NY 11222

3rd Annual Public Art Potluck, Laundromat Project

credit: Laundromat Project

Third Annual Public Art Potluck
Engage our Create Change artists in conversations about their projects and creative ideas set in communities across New York City and Philadelphia. You’ll hear about socially-engaged art projects ranging from yoga-based printmaking in Jackson Heights to envisioning a new waterfront for the South Bronx to a multimedia installation highlighting the history of garment workers in Sunset Park.

What Do We Bring? Yummy Food and Public Art!
What Do You Bring? An Open Mind and Creative Ideas!

Wednesday, October 3, 2012 | 7:00pm – 9:30p
Doors open at 6:30pm
University Settlement, 184 Eldridge Street, New York, NY 10002
Dinner will be prepared by Organic Soul Chef Madea Allen.
Get Tickets

Fix It Yourself: The Art of Creating Revolutionary Economic Models

Inventing alternative forms of exchange for a fair economy is one of the most crucial creative challenges of our time.

Fix It Yourself: The Art of Creating Revolutionary Economic Models
Saturday, June 16, 2012 2 PM
The Kitchen, 512 W 19th Street
Organized in collaboration with artist Paolo Cirio, 2012 Fellow at Eyebeam.
Speakers include Paolo Cirio, Mary Jeys, Jessie Reilly, Gregory Sholette, and Caroline Woolard.
This program is free of charge and open to the public; seats will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis.
This event is organized in conjunction with Creative Destruction on view at The Kitchen.

Brooklyn Torch Impossible Photo Project

In 2011, Macktez granted me a Summer Stipend to document my monetary exchanges in North Brooklyn. The project was a piece of the overarching Brooklyn Torch Project, but was specifically designed to use special film and to follow my own spending habits. Thank you to Macktez, you can see the photos here.

Dumbo Arts Center, Information Economy

Exhibition Dates: January 22 – March 6, 2011
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 22, 6 – 9 PM
Location: 111 Front Street, Suite 212, Brooklyn, NY 11201

Do You Belong On The Brooklyn Torch?

The Last Supper Festival
Opening: September 25, 2009
3rd Ward in Bushwick until October 3, 2009